Crowd Control

In today’s Gospel (Matt 13:1-9), Jesus, because of the massive crowds pressing in on him, has to get into a boat and push off into the water. That’s the only way he’s going to get them to listen – they are forced to stand on the seashore and hear the message of the Kingdom of God. In this case, it’s the quintessential Kingdom parable – the parable of the sower.

Many scholars of the Gospels have posited a theory called the “Messianic Secret” in Jesus’ ministry: after Jesus heals people or exorcises demons, he often tells the recipient of the healing to keep quiet about what has happened. Why? Jesus’ identity – according to this theory – must be kept quiet until the appointed time to reveal it.

Hogwash. As one of my finest professors, New Testament scholar Craig A. Evans of Acadia Divinity College used to say, Jesus is the Messiah and knows it. He wants others to know it. His words and actions are practically screaming it out, without using the term itself. The reason Jesus doesn’t want his healings and exorcisms publicized has nothing to do with keeping a secret.

In the ancient world, about 1/3 of the population are very sick at any given period of time. Jesus is a one-man, walking health care clinic! Add to that the significant number of demonic possession cases, and there is no wonder that once word gets out about this, huge crowds press him, just trying to touch even the fringe of his garment, knowing they could be healed. Now, that’s all well and good, but it gets in the way of the main message – how one can enter the Kingdom of God. How one can be healed body and soul for eternity, not just for a short time in the body only. First, the message of the Kingdom. The healings and exorcisms are the evidence of the veracity of that message, not the message itself. And that’s why Jesus has to teach from the boat. It’s crowd control!

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Marian Misconception

Today’s Gospel reading gives rise to a common non-Catholic assumption (pardon the pun) about Mary:

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside,
asking to speak with you.”
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
“Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt 12:46-50).

Some have understood Jesus as being very dismissive towards his mother with these words. Not so. First, Jesus always honored his mother, as any good Jewish son would (As God, he’s the very author of the fourth commandment, by the way). Plus, no one was actually more docile, more obedient to God’s will than Mary, who be came the first Christian disciple by her famous “Fiat”. In enfleshing his Word, she proved to be the doer of the Father’s will par excellence.

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The Catholic Register on The New Mass: There’s An App For That!

The Catholic Register’s intrepid Sheila Dabu has written some front-page news about The New Mass app! It’s in this week’s edition of the paper, so be sure to pick it up at your local parish. You can also read the blog post Sheila wrote about it on the Catholic Register’s website here.

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St Bonaventure and the Origin of the Universe

Yesterday was the feast day of St Bonaventure. Although much could be said about the Seraphic Doctor, I’d like to focus on this: he was a proponent of a fascinating apologetic, called the Kalam cosmological argument.

Now, cosmology has nothing to do with cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, or anything like that! Cosmology has to do with the cosmos -the universe, and its origins. The Kalam argument became popular among Islamic philosophers in the Middle Ages, but not so much among Catholics. One notable exception was St Bonaventure.

The argument goes like this:

1) The universe (obviously) exists. 2) The universe either had a beginning or no beginning. 3) If a beginning – the beginning was either caused or not caused. 4) If it was caused – the cause was either personally caused or not personally caused.

If accepted, the argument ends with the universe being caused by a personal God. Each part of the argument presents you with a dilemma. Once you answer one question, it presents you with another, until you come to an inescapable conclusion.

Let’s take a look at point 2: The universe either had a beginning or no beginning. There are many who claim that the universe need not have a beginning point, or a first cause. They advocate an infinite number of causes stretching back in time through the history of the universe. However, there is no such thing as an actual infinite number of causes. There is no such thing as as an actual infinite number of anything!

For example, imagine, if you will, a library where there is an infinite number of red books, and an infinite number of black books. If someone signs a red book out of the library, there would still be just as many red books as black books in the library, since there is an infinite number of each! But this is obviously not the case in actuality. Hence, there can not be an infinite number of causes stretching back through the history of the universe. There had to be a first cause, a beginning, to the universe.

In future posts I’ll take a look at the rest of the Kalam argument.

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The New Mass App Goes “Around the Arch”!

Neil McCarthy, the illustrious Public Relations Director here in the Archdiocese of Toronto, has posted an interview he did with me on The New Mass App for the Around the Arch blog. Thanks for helping to spread the word, Neil! And for all of you who live in the T-Dot and the GTA, Around the Arch is not to be missed for all the latest on our local and Universal Church!

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The New Mass App on Canterbury Tales

The New Mass App has found its way on to Canterbury Tales, the popular blog by Taylor Marshall! Read Taylor’s review here. Taylor has authored an amazing book called The Crucified Rabbi, which I reviewed not long ago. I can’t wait to read parts two and three of his trilogy, which will be on St Paul and the role of Rome in Catholicism, respectively. Taylor’s a former Anglican priest who is a convert to Catholicism. He’s one of the most exciting young converts and scholars to come into the Church in recent memory. His blog is always relevant and insightful, and it’s one you’ll bookmark for sure!

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The Fire of God’s Holiness

Today’s first reading at Mass is the famous vision of the prophet Isaiah (Is. 6:1-8):

In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:
with two they veiled their faces,
with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft.

They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

Like Isaiah, we too live among a people of unclean lips. And if we’re honest with ourselves, as was Isaiah, we must admit that sometimes we’ve been people of unclean lips as well. But if Isaiah’s wickedness was removed by a fiery coal from the altar of God, how much more can we be cleansed by the Eucharist that passes our lips – God himself, Jesus Christ. And, with his Real Presence within us, animating us, how can we fail to, like Isaiah, communicate Christ’s forgiving love to others? The living, Eucharistic Lord whom we receive at Mass empowers us to say, “Here I am, send me!”

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The New Mass iPhone App – available now!

It’s finally a reality!

I’m proud to announce that our first iPhone App, The New Mass, is available now, from the Apple App Store. You can find out how to download it here, or simply access the App Store from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad!

As you probably know by now, there is a new English translation of the Mass, approved by Pope Benedict XVI, that will be in a parish near you within a few months – most likely by Advent 2011. This new translation is both more faithful to the official Latin text of the Mass, and helps to explain the biblical roots of the liturgy. The New Mass App will help you to learn the new responses you’ll have to know for the Mass (we can’t go from memory anymore, folks!), while giving some of the reasons for each change. Best of all, you can still use it with today’s Mass!

I’d really like to thank Batsirai Chada, my co-developer in producing this app. Couldn’t have done it without you! We served as each other’s best man at our respective weddings, and I’m happy we could stand together once again for this important project.

I was so thankful that when I showed the New Mass app to my Archbishop, His Grace, Thomas Collins of Toronto, he liked it, saying that it was “wonderful”.

I think you’ll like it too. Happy downloading!

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Jesus’ Golden Rule

In yesterday’s Gospel reading at Mass, Jesus talks about what’s become known as the Golden Rule:

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.
This is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12).

Which brings to mind that silly poster put out by a so-called “Catholic” organization, which attempts to show that all religions teach something like the Golden Rule. The point seems to be that all religions are pretty much the same.

The only problem is, it’s not true.

Catholicism actually teaches that it is unique among all religions – and what is unique is not a what, but a who – Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). That’s either true or it isn’t.

But as for the Golden Rule: Jesus’ version is much different and more challenging than the version presented by other faiths. Their versions say something to the effect of, “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you”. In other words, it’s a negative command.

As author Philip Yancey has noted, Jesus’ version, “Do unto others”, is far more open-ended and challenging.

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Jesus, Joking and “Judging”

In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 7, Jesus says this:

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’while the wooden beam is in your eye?

You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”

First of all, I want to point out that our Lord is actually being quite funny here. Hebrew humor is often humor by exaggeration, so you can imagine he probably drew a few laughs by saying something to the effect of, “Before pulling that splinter out of somebody else’s eye, you might want to pull the telephone pole out of your own eye, so you can see what you’re doing!”

All joking aside, Jesus’ main point against wrongfully judging others has been grossly misinterpreted by many, who wish to use Jesus’ words to justify sinful lifestyles. The argument goes something like this: “Jesus says not to judge others, so you can’t possibly judge my behavior to be wrong.”

Actually, I can – and I should! And so should you. We must make judgments on particular behaviors. Objectively, certain behaviors are wrong (that’s why we have laws against things like theft, murder, etc.). What we can’t judge are people’s motives (why they do what they do), or the state of their soul before God. We just don’t know the answers to those questions – the Church doesn’t even venture a guess as to who may be in hell. And the only way we know some are in heaven (saints) is because they’ve given us evidence that they are there (miracles).

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